A/N: Thank you to all who reviewed! I hope you enjoy this next chapter. Please R/R!

Chapter 2

Michael Vaughn moaned. He felt like crap. He was incredibly groggy and his mouth was dry. He heard commotion around him as he began to stir, and seconds later, he felt a cool comforting cloth being placed on his forehead. Vaughn slowly lifted his eyes open, and seconds later found himself looking into familiar brown hair and eyes.
"Sydney," he whispered. His eyes began to adjust to the dim lighting within the room, and in doing so the woman above him became more pronounced. She looked different; older some how. Almost like.Irina Derevko. Vaughn sat straight up and stumbled off the cot that he had been laying on. Vaughn frantically reached inside his coat pocket trying to find his gun but it wasn't there. Irina Derevko stood.
"Relax, Agent Vaughn," She requested very calmly.
"Where am I? Why have you brought me here?" Vaughn demanded.
"You were in an accident, Agent Vaughn," Irina explained slowly. Memories began to flood Vaughn's consciousness. He remembered the car that had been following them. The shooting. Sydney lying dead in the backseat.
"You killed her. You killed your own daughter!" Vaughn said angrily. "How could you do that?"
Irina looked at him sadly. "It wasn't easy, trust me. She looked so much like her."
Vaughn looked at her with disgusted surprise. "Looked like her? It was her! You just shot your own daughter! You took away my only source of salvation! Don't you feel any thing?"
Irina Derevko looked at Vaughn angrily as she stood up and approached him. "Don't you dare say that I don't feel anything, Agent Vaughn. I care for my daughter a great deal, more than you're understanding right now." Irina took a deep breath. "The person in that car with you was not my daughter. She was a double."
Vaughn looked at Irina in surprise. "A double? But project Helix was destroyed."
"Sloane has the intel now to manufacture Helix machines if he wanted to," Irina stated matter-of-factly. Vaughn's eyes narrowed.
"How do you know that you didn't just kill the real Sydney?"
"Because the real Sydney is wearing my earrings."
Vaughn glared at Irina Derevko. "You've known all this time where Sydney's been and you didn't once thing to contact the CIA?"
Irina shook her head in disappointment. "Agent Vaughn, you know what Rambaldi was working on; trying to obtain immortality, this what."
"Rambaldi?" Vaughn sputtered the name out with venom. "This isn't about some fucking dead fortune teller who was trying to achieve immortality. This is about Sydney."
Irina regarded Vaughn with a sort of calm frustration. "You're right, it's all about Sydney. Agent Vaughn, why do you think you're here?" Vaughn froze, unsure of how to answer that question.
"I brought you here to bring Sydney back. I know the extent of Sloane's research and how close he is to completing it, and I won't let daughter help him in any way," Irina paused.
"But if that's true," Vaughn said slowly, "why have you allowed Sydney to be gone this long?"
"This may seem harsh to you, Agent Vaughn, but I needed to obtain all the data I could from Sloane so I could find Rambaldi's secret."
"You think that I should help you get Sydney back so that you can achieve immortality?" Vaughn scoffed. "It's better off in the hands of Sloane!"
"Do you really think that?" Irina asked him. "I'm not guaranteeing that I'll use the intel that I've acquired. The purpose is really to get rid of Sloane's chance of becoming immortal and to get Sydney back where she'll be safe."
"Why should I help you at all?" Vaughn asked. "How do I know you won't betray me as you've done to others?"
"That Agent Vaughn, I can in no way convince you that my words are true. It's your risk, but the reward is great."
Vaughn looked closely at Irina Derevko. Under any and all circumstances this is a woman that he should not trust; a woman that had murdered countless people, including his own father. Irina had betrayed Sydney and her family so many times that Irina's loyalty to anyone was questionable. Vaughn's indecision was haunting, but he knew the only decision he could make.
"Alright, Irina. I'll do it, for Sydney."

"ETA?" Jack Bristow asked the extraction agents.
"Two minutes, Sir." Jack watched the screen in anticipation. He wanted to know what had happened. Vaughn's mission was for him to find Sydney and bring her back, but he had not been on the flight home and was completely unreachable.
"It's not looking good, Agent Bristow," Agent Farley reported. "It looks like there's been an accident."
"Switch to camera," Jack requested. Seconds later, a CIA issued car came into view. It looked okay aside from the fact that it was empty and parked in the middle of a highway. "Move in closer." Agent Farley stepped forward and Jack became anxious as he noticed bullet holes in the windows and two blown out left tires.
Agent Farley continued forward towards the vehicle and stepped close enough so that both he and the camera were on the left side of the car. The windows were tinted in a dark grayish color, so seeing anything inside was impossible. Agent Farley took a gloved hand and pulled open the driver's side door. It was empty. He then moved his way to the back passenger seat and pulled open the door on that side.
The sight that met the eyes of both Agent Farley and Agent Bristow was ghastly. Sydney Bristow lay strewn across the seat, a large bullet whole placed neatly in her temple. Her head apparently had been leaning against the left side door because not only was it thickly stained with blood, now Sydney's head was hanging over the seat. Her eyes were opened, but they were glazed over in a look of shock. The rest of the car was not in good condition either. Most of the back of the car had blood splattered somewhere among the leather upholstery of the vehicle. Bullet holes left their mark in the windows, and a gun lay on the floor right behind the front passenger seat. Jack Bristow wanted so much to turn away and not look at the remains of the girl in front of him that had once been his daughter, but he just couldn't. This was the first time he'd seen her two years. Two years of thinking that she was dead, and then she calls. To Jack the idea that she was alive was reassuring, but still not believable until he got to see her face. He was so close to seeing her again.and then this. It wasn't fair. Jack threw down his headphones and stopped away from the computer. He walked into the nearest conference room and shut the door. He sat down in the closest chair and placed his head in his hands. He never felt his heart break in such a way as it was now. Even when he'd found out the truth about Laura, the pain hadn't been this great. Sydney was dead. Vaughn was missing. What was going to happen next?